Baby Soap: Buttermilk Bastille Baby Bar

What is bastille? Bastille is a term affectionately coined by soapers for soap that is made with a high percentage of olive oil. Castille is 100% olive oil soap and bastille is soap made with 70% (or more) olive oil but contains other oils or butters.

Castille on its own is not very bubbly but if you add a bit of coconut oil and buttermilk you can boost the bubbles a bit but keep the mildness of the high olive oil content. Buttermilk contains sugar which helps boost the bubbles as well.

I love this recipe. Its simple with just two oil ingredients (olive and coconut), is colored naturally by using carrot baby food (pureed carrots) and makes a great soap for baby or for those with sensitive skin. This recipe creates a super mild soap that still has a good lather.

There are many different techniques when using milk in making soap. My favorite is to freeze the milk beforehand in ice cube trays. Milk contains sugar and heats up quite a bit when you make your lye solution. If you freeze beforehand it will help keep the temps down.

So fill up an ice cube tray with your buttermilk and have that frozen beforehand.

The next step is to make the lye solution. The milk doesn’t have to be frozen solid but should be nice and slushy. Weigh out 8 oz of slushy milk and add the 2.5 oz of pureed carrots.

To help keep the temps down when adding the lye, you can set your lye container in an ice bath. As you add the lye and stir…this will keep it from scorching or burning the milk.

Measure out the olive oil, coconut oil and melt. Usually I don’t heat olive oil…I’ll add it to melted solid oils and butters. Add your lye solution to the heated oils and stickblend until you reach trace. Be prepared, this recipe may trace quickly!

Check out that beautiful orange color! I don’t add fragrance to this soap since it is for babies or people with sensitive skin but if you’d like to add a fragrance or essential oil do that now. Then pour into your mold!

After 24 hours, slice up and cure. High olive oil soaps do better with a longer cure time. I like to cure this soap at least six weeks.

137 Comments

Ok so I rebatched my first loaf because the slices were TERRIBLE (non rebatched mini brain shaped jello mold remains as overflow from loaf mold).

The 2nd batch I colored with some cocoa powder and funnel poured.

All of it I substituted pumpkin mush for the carrot baby food since I have a freezer full of the stuff and it gives off the same creamy orange color.

Sorry not to fbook on Bramble Berry page_ trying to be sure to conceal the existence of yet curing bubbly blocks of baby cleaning goodness from various persons and would really dislike accidental advanced cats being let out of proverbial bags that fbook is so good at poking holes in . . . even when you think you have them sew shut with steel wire, locked in iron trunks, and cast into the core of giant concrete blocks. . .

We are so happy to hear that this recipe has helped you to find a way to give baby gifts. If you get any pictures of your soapy creations, be sure to share them with us on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page. =)

I have many avocado trees and wondering if I can add in avocado as an ingredient and color. Is this a good idea? Would I add in the avocado as is or have to puree? Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. BTW, new to all soap making.

If you would like to add your Avocado to this recipe, I would suggest making a puree of it and adding in place of the Carrot Baby Food. We’ll be super excited to hear how it turns out! Be sure to keep us updated.

Would love to make this soap with as a remill with some castille soap as well as the preshredded goats milk I bought from brambleberry….how would I do this? I’m just a beginner and have had a request for this particular soap

Because this is a cold process recipe, it is actually going to be a bit different than rebatching/remilling your soap. While you can add extra water and oils to your rebatch soap, it will take longer to dry and harden. Here are a couple of tutorials on rebatching that might be helpful:

This is a great recipe for anyone with sensitive skin. It contains no colorants or fragrances which is typically the first type of ingredients that people who react to. I would suggest trying it out and letting us know what you think of the recipe. =)

If your soap zaps like a 9-volt battery then it is lye-heavy and you wouldn’t want to use it on the skin. But, you don’t have to waste any of it. We actually have a laundry soap recipe that is perfect for lye-heavy soaps, you can find it here:

I am in the early stages of learning about soap-making. I am interested in creating a “vegan” version of this recipe. Could the buttermilk be replaced with coconut milk? If so, would the amount be the same? Would the coconut milk scent the soap?

For any milk recipe, you can actually substitute out one milk for another. And, in any soap recipe, you can use the liquid (distilled water) as milk as well. The Coconut Milk may give your soap a slight scent, but if you really want it to pop, I would definitely add a fragrance to it. I would suggest something summery like Summer Melon Spritzer or Summer Fling Fragrance Oil.

I would also check out this great book that Anne-Marie wrote on making milk soaps. It has several different techniques that you can use as well as some helpful hints, tips and recipes! I constantly refer to it when I’m making my milk soaps and find it to be a great resource.

You will just love this recipe! It is so skin-loving and the buttermilk and baby food really give it such a mild feel. Anytime you add fresh ingredients to your soap they do have the potential of going bad, even in cold process soap. They will last a long time but not indefinite like most cold process soaps. But, in this soap, the high pH of the lye neutralizes the baby food puree exceedingly well, so you should get a good 1 year shelf life out of this soap. I hope this helps! Let me know if I can answer any other questions for you. 🙂

We are totally here to help you troubleshoot and figure out what you recipe will look like. If you could let me know the ingredients you are using, and the amount you want to make, I am more than happy to help you put this together. =)

To figure out how much you want to make, you would measure you mold. If you don’t know the amount the mold will hold, the easiest way to figure it out is the following equation:

L (Length) X H (Height) X W (Width) = Cubic Inches

Once you’ve gotten the cubic inches, you multiply that number by .40 to find the amount of oils (by ounces) in your recipe.

After this calculation has been figured out, you would enter that amount of oils into a lye calculator to get the final recipe.

If you are wanting to use Aloe Vera Liquid in your recipe, you can actually substitute the whole amount of water from the recipe you are wanting to use. Just make sure to run your recipe through the lye calculator to get the correct lye and liquid amounts.

Ok so I have never made soap before and this will be my very 1st recipe! I do have a question though. I am making this for my new addition who is due any day now! I don’t want to wait the 6 weeks for it to cure to be able to use it on him. Do you think I can put it in the oven for a CPOP process? Do you think that will scorch the buttermilk?

Welcome to the world of soapmaking, we are so excited that you have decided to start. If you’ve never made cold process soap before, I would definitely suggest watching this intro series from Soap Queen TV on cold process soapmaking:

If you are going to be making this cold process recipe, we definitely suggest letting it cure for 4-6 weeks to make sure that it is mild enough to be used on even the most sensitive of skin.

It is possible to CPOP this recipe but the milk will scorch and turn brown or orange in the soap – and it might smell for 7-10 days after making it. You can also ask this question at
the Teach Soap forums as there are many soapers there that do CPOP and could offer you some great advice on buttermilk milk in CPOP-type soaps.

This soap is an extremely mild recipe (because of the buttermilk and baby food), and the pH is within the recommended rate for cold process soaps. If you want to test it, you can use the handy pH strips from Bramble Berry’s website.

If adding baby food into this soap doesn’t work for you, you can actually remove it and add either add water or additional buttermilk. Just remember to run your recipe through the lye calculator if you change any of the oils in the recipe.

Good morning, Victoria! We are so happy to hear that you are getting into soapmaking, it’s such a fun thing to do. If you want a similar ‘milk’ type soap but in a M&P version. I’d try out our Goat’s Milk Melt and Pour base. It has a very creamy lather, and several skin-loving oils and butters in it.

Could you use goats milk instead of butter milk? And what else could you use to color the soap? My sister has extremely sensitive skin and she can only use Dove Sensitive Skin. So I am on the search for a great soap to make for her!

Hi Victoria,
For any milk recipe, you can switch out one milk for another. So in this recipe, just substitute the buttermilk for the goats milk! Don’t forget to create your frozen milk slushie first so that it doesn’t burn. But, remember if you change any of the oils to run it through the lye calculator

thanks also dose the soap turn brown because of the carrots, I have learned that adding anything like lavender buds or plants to my soap go brown after a while. what if I didn’t add the carrots? what color would the soap be? or can I add colorant to it like a pink or blue and what type is the best to use.

Thanks for the great question. Anytime that you add a fresh ingredient to a cold process soap, it is eventually going to go brown. If you didn’t add the carrots, the soap would still be a yellowish hue because of the buttermilk. If you wanted to add a color to this recipe, you could, and it’s totally up to you which one you choose.

If you want to keep it nice and natural, I’d suggest any of our clays, which you can find here:

I hope this helps! Just be aware that if you make this soap for babies, you will want to leave out the color or fragrance because of their super sensitive baby skin. Let me know if you have any other questions. =)

If you wanted to make this a harder bar of soap, you could add a bit of Rice Bran Oil to this recipe. I’d suggest adding in 5 ounces of Rice Bran Oil and subtracting 5 ounces from the Olive Oil. So the recipe would read as:

I’ve made this recipe twice now and for the most part, I love it! Low lather, skin softening and palm free…great baby soap 🙂 It does, however, have that gooey feeling from the high percentage of olive oil when being used-even after several months of curing.
I’m wondering what oils you might suggest substituting for a portion of the olive oil to minimize the gooey feeling while retaining some of the bar’s great qualities?

This is such a moisturizing and lovely recipe, but I do understand how it can be a bit soft due to the Olive Oil. You can actually add some Sodium Lactate to this recipe as a hardener or add a bit of Rice Bran Oil which will also help to harden it up. =) I hope this helps!

I know this is a bit off-topic, but I’m hoping that you can offer some insight into why lye calculators vary so much. I love that SoapCalc.net offers hardness/creaminess values for new recipes but when I go to cross reference my lye and water they don’t match up with Bramble Berry’s lye calc. results (even when I play with discounts)!???

I’m not sure which calculator I should be using or perhaps I’m missing something obvious here…any thoughts?

What a great question! Our lye calculator is going to be a little different then the others out there because the saponifcation values, technically have a range. Ours may differ then others you have tried because we give the most conservative number. We do this, so if there is any room for the batch to do anything funny, it is less than if the sap value was higher. I hope this helps! =)

I’m interested in making this recipe but have put it through the lye calculator and can’t get the liquid content to add up. Are you superfatting at 5%? Is liquid content the combination of buttermilk and pureed carrot?

When Amanda made this recipe, she did do a bit of a water discount and didn’t use lye calculator to get her water amount. I’m reposting one of her comments from above and it should help explain it a bit more.
-Becky with Bramble Berry

Amanda: Ohhhhhh…this is kinda an odd ball recipe. I don’t use calcs to get my water.
I usually do 1.5 times my lye or 2 times my lye…or whatever based on my
oils and what I’m trying to do. But this one is a bit odd.

Just playing around in soap calc to try and come up with the numbers:
Water as % of Oils = 22 (so in the above there are 32 oz of oils – multiply
by .22 to get the buttermilk amount) and then also add 1.25 oz of carrot
baby food per pound of oils

If that makes sense?

You can also plug this into a lye calc and use the numbers that they give you.

This recipe contains a high Olive Oil content, it is going to take a bit longer to trace. If you want your soap to trace faster, I’d suggest heating them up before you combine them with the lye water solution. I hope this helps! =)

I just found about this recipe and I can wait to try it. I am from Panama, Central America, and we do not have buttermilk. Can I use one homemade? (1 tbs vinegar + milk to iquals 1 cup) that is the way we use it for cooking.

I was tempted to use milk instead of buttermilk but read up in one post that it does not behave the same in soapmaking. Any recommendations for me? or just distilled water?

We’ve never tried making our own Buttermilk and using it in a recipe, but you can definitely try it out. I’d suggest making a super small batch to test it out to make sure it works the best for you. When using milk (or buttermilk) in a recipe, you are definitely going to want to freeze it beforehand (like in the recipe). I hope this helps! Keep us updated on how it turns out. =)

I’ve made soap a few times, so I thought was ready for this. I’ve never made a milk soap before, though. I made this yesterday and just unmolded it. It came out very dry and brittle. When I try to cut it, it just breaks apart. I followed the recipe, except I pureed my own carrots–I didn’t have baby food. The puree resembled baby food to me. I also added 15 ml of peach FO.Any ideas?

I think I figured it out. I kept the frozen buttermilk too cold. I made it again and didn’t put the bowl in the ice water bath until it started to get above 130 degrees. Last time, the milk and lye only got up to about 96…I kept it cold! The recipe was right off your website for baby bastille.
Thanks for responding.

We’ve never tried the HP crock pot method with this particular recipe, but I’d be a little concerned about the buttermilk in this recipe and how it might scorch and burn when the heat is applied. But, if you were to try it out, make sure you do a super small batch first. You can also ask over at the Teach Soap forums to see if any of the soapers there have attempted a HP milk soap and how it turned out for them.

Hi there!
I love this recipe and made my first batch of it last week in a new tiny mold i built. It looks beautiful and smells lovely. I have a question in regards of the baby food aspect of the recipe. My friend brought me an assortment of different fruit baby foods. They contain either Stearic Acid or Ascorbic acid. Would these effect the soap negatively when adding it? I would love to use the strawberry banana or apples and blueberries but have no idea what to expect and I don’t want to waste supplies.

Hi Erin,
For personal use…I would give them a try and I don’t think they would effect the soap. If you sell…I wouldn’t use them just because those are additional ingredients that you would have to list on the label.

But I think the stearic acid or ascorbic acid would not be enough to mess with the soap.

I am curious about the liquid content too! Can I substitute distilled water for the buttermilk in the exact same amount, 7oz for 7oz? I am new to soapmaking and it seems that milk can sometimes be tricky.

Also, if I don’t want to mess with the water discount and instead run this through the BB lye calculator, how will that affect my recipe? Will it just take longer to trace and to cure?

This is a great soap. Made my own buttermilk out of goats milk. It is so creamy, (taste great too) If you are fortunate enough to have a goat or know where to get the milk, it is easy to make. Got instructions from internet. 3 cups fresh goat milk 72-74 degrees 1 cup store bought buttermilk (freshest date) put in glass jar leave out 12-24 hrs. Milk is ready when it coats the jar. Always save 1 cup for the next batch. Weigh it then freeze it in ice tray. Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes . Just learning and LOVING IT……

Thanks for the tips, Brenda! We are so happy to hear that using Goat’s Milk works so well for you! We’d love to see pictures of how your soap turns out, you can share them with us on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page:

I just wanted know what the follow up answer was on the “white dots” in the soap? (Lye or coconut oil)? I just made a batch of Goat’s milk soap and the same thing happened to me. I’d hate to throw it out! Is there any way to save it if it is undisolved lye? I know rebatching would be an answer, but how the heck do you do that? I’ve been soaping only for a year and have used the same recipe for that past 5 months…I did use the Mango Peach Salsa FO. GM was Frozen and lye was added to it slowly. I guess I didn’t stir enough and had a rock like orange thing at the bottom and I fished it out and threw it away. I think it was burnt lye/Milk that didn’t get stirred or could just be old milk? I froze the milk in June. Okay, I’ll shut up now…:-) Any Help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a bunch…I’m Stumped?

I am new to soap making and I just wanted to say that when I freeze my goat milk it seams to make the cream go to the top of the cube, that is when you freeze in a frost free freezer. Not quite as bad in my chest freezer. Have to pull trays ASAP and bag. Could the white spots just be fat from the goat milk? Just a thought. I am wondering myself…

Ah, ok…I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything obvious 🙂 I did go ahead with the recipe according the lye calc and so far so good…I’ll let you know how it turns out.

In regards to adding plant material to soaps, is it typically ok to add puree to a soap recipe without the use of a preservative (say, figs or something of the sort)? This is the first time I’ve used puree and I’d love to experiment more!!

When adding puree (of any natural kind) to cold process soap, it is never necessary to add a preservative to it. But remember that any perishable item that you add to your soap can eventually go brown.

Ohhhhhh…this is kinda an odd ball recipe. I don’t use calcs to get my water.
I usually do 1.5 times my lye or 2 times my lye…or whatever based on my
oils and what I’m trying to do. But this one is a bit odd.

Just playing around in soap calc to try and come up with the numbers:
Water as % of Oils = 22 (so in the above there are 32 oz of oils – multiply
by .22 to get the buttermilk amount) and then also add 1.25 oz of carrot
baby food per pound of oils

If that makes sense?

You can also plug this into a lye calc and use the numbers that they give you.

Quick question–when I divided the recipe by 2.5 and plugged 10.8 oz olive oil and 2 oz coconut oil into the lye calculator it said that I would need 4.2 oz liquid where if I simply divided the entire recipe by 2.5 it would seem that I only need 2.8 oz of liquid (7+2.5/2.5). Any thoughts on this??

I would like to know this too. 🙂 I ran the original recipe through the lye calc and it seems like she did a water discount. Am I correct in thinking this? This has one ounce of liquid less than what the lye calc gives.

Hi! I have never made soap before. I am intrigued with how you use carrots in your recipe and also curious if they offer more than just a nice color. Do they have any skin car benefits as well? Warmly, Naomi

This Buttermilk Bastille Baby Bar does fall under the umbrella of Cold Process soaping because it contains lye and you make it from scratch instead of melting it down (like Melt & Pour). Any recipe that you will run across that specifies the amount of lye you will need in it is going to be CP. =)

Hi Amanda. Thank you for this simple yet elegant soap. I made it yesterday and uncovered it this evening. The soap lathers so nicely but it has an odd smell – almost like bleach. Does this go away or did I err in some way? I added about 1/2 tespoon of almond eo to give it a hint of smell. Can you help? Many thanks. Patti

Sometimes the Buttermilk and Carrot Baby Food can cause the soap to smell a little odd to some people as, but after you let it cure that weird scent should evaporate. Did you add anything extra to this soap?

I tried this with goat’s milk and came out with white spots in my bars when I cut them. I froze the milk, stirred as I added the lye, mixed well (I thought) and saw no indication of spots when I combined with my oil. Could this be undisolved lye? I’ve never had a failed batch so I’m totally in “panic mode” now.

Hi Summer! Do you think that it could be air bubbles? Or it might be that the coconut oil has started to harden. We would love to help troubleshoot this for you, but it is a little hard without seeing the soap.

Send us some pictures to info(at)brambleberry(dot)com and we will help you figure out what is going on!

Absolutely! All you need to do is make sure it is a liquid or fixed oil. Just remember to run your entire recipe through the lye calculator to make sure you know how much lye and liquids to use. 🙂https://www.brambleberry.com/Pages/Lye-Calculator.aspx
-Becky with Bramble Berry

Ok I am really excited about making soap for my girls :O) I have NEVER attempted to make any kind of soap before so I have no clue what I am doing.
I am a little confused about the lye .
Here is says to make the lye solution so is the lye made from the carrots and the milk or are you meaning that it is something that you melt.

The next step is to make the lye solution. The milk doesn’t have to be frozen solid but should be nice and slushy. Weigh out 7 oz of slushy milk and add the 2.5 oz of pureed carrots.

Also wanting to use all organic ingredients is that possible to do if the lye is something that I have to buy ??
Thanks
Lindy

In this recipe, to get the lye solution, you will first want to mix your 7 oz. of slushy buttermilk with the 2.5 oz. of pureed carrots. After mixing well, you will add this to your 4.3 oz. of lye. You will mix these two together very carefully (due to the lye).

Lye is necessary for soap to be soap. If you don’t have lye somewhere in the process, it isn’t soap. If you are worried about working with lye, I would suggest starting with melt & pour soap. I hope this helps!
-Becky with Bramble Berry

Thanks for the question Ruth! You can definitely replace the buttermilk in this recipe with anything else you’d like. Many people love using goats milk in this recipe because of its creamy lather and great skin-loving properties!
-Becky with Bramble Berry

I just used cow milk… I don’t know any goats to supply me. Actually, I don’t know any cows either. Anyways, it seemed to me like the milky thickened a bit like buttermilk, and buttermilk is just spoiled milk… So, in my mind cows milk is the same as buttermilk.

Milk and Buttermilk are going to be different ingredients in soaping. So, if you wanted to try regular cows milk, I’d suggest making a very small batch first, so you know how it works in your recipe! 🙂

So I just found this recipe and am interested in trying it but I also found a recipe for making soap with breast milk that sounds intriguing. Could you replace the goat’s milk with breast milk? If not, why not?

You can definitely use breast milk in place of water (or milk) in cold process soap, but as with all milks, you will want to freeze it beforehand to prevent the milk proteins from scorching in your soap. You are correct about the lather of the bar, it will change depending on what sort of milks you use in it. Keep us updated if you do end up trying it out!

I absolutely love your blog and youtube channel! I’ve gathered so many wonderful ideas and recipes! I was wondering if sometime soon you wouldn’t mind doing something on organic (or at least natural) shampoo bars? I would love to start making them, and would love to see how you do them…

How many bars does this make? If I want to double this recipe, is it just as simple as doubling the numbers of the ingredients? If I want to add some chamomile to this, how much do you think I should add? Thanks!! This will be my first time trying soap!

Trisha, Go for it – its so much fun. Once you get hooked that’s it. I’m a novice – started in August & loving it. I’ve made about 10-12 batches already & wouldn’t go back to bought soap. It’s so nice to have soapqueen to assist with our questions.

She freezes the milk and puts it in an ice bath when adding the lye to the milk. Try to keep the temperatures low so the milk doesn’t scorch.
110-115 sounds like a good temperature range to me (since that’s the temperature that we normally soap with).

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